<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Beauty and Imperfections by Llama1412</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241288">Beauty and Imperfections</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412'>Llama1412</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Positivity, Gen, Nude Modeling, Nudity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:09:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier signs up to be a nude model. He's expecting it to be a fun, sexy time.</p><p>It goes a lot differently than he expected.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beauty and Imperfections</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the Banned Together Bingo prompt Nudity.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It had been a genius plan, if he did say so himself. So it couldn’t Jaskier’s fault everything was going so much differently than he’d hoped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he’d seen the posted notice looking for a nude model, of course he’d been interested! Nudity was one of Jaskier’s favorite things in life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d thought it would be sexy. Him, naked in the front of the room with young, passionate art students salivating over the sight of him? What was there not to like?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only, the students weren’t salivating. Oh, they were looking at him. But not really. They were staring at the shape of his bicep or the curve of his shoulder, not because they wanted to trace it with their tongues, but because they were trying to replicate it just right. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was odd. Jaskier wasn’t used to getting attention that had nothing to do with sex.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was...kind of nice? He was used to thinking of himself as attractive – he was certainly told as much often enough, usually in between panted breaths and accompanied by swearing. And he liked that, he did. He thrived on that attention.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he wasn’t 20 anymore. And his face might look young, but his body was a aging one that was used to life on the road. He did his best to hide the evidence – lotion over his calluses, grease over his scars when they were healing, sucking in his stomach or wearing form fitting lingerie to cover the pudge of his belly, dye to cover the grey in his hair. All his routines came together to show the image that he wanted – that of a horny young man looking for a romp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But here, none of that mattered. No one here was looking for sex. All of their passion was fully intent on their art, and yet, Jaskier still held their attention. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier had come in prettied up to his finest. After all, he was expecting a sexy hour of being ogled. Except it turned out modeling sessions staying in one position for all that time was really difficult. The instructor had offered to let him stop and stretch whenever he needed, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, after 20 minutes, Jaskier could no longer keep his belly sucked in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was half expecting mocking comments for his flab, half expecting that they would want him to leave now. Jaskier’s worth had always been based on how pretty he was. To reveal how substandard he was, to show that his body was subject to the changes of age – it was terrifying.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Except, instead of laughing, the students started complimenting him. Well, not started. They had complimenting him previously, but it was easy to dismiss the compliments he constantly received. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> them, needed that validation, but it wasn’t enough. He craved the appeals to his vanity, but he’d heard them all before. They just didn’t mean as much anymore.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But instead of his beauty or his youth, all the comments were on how his imperfections were the most interesting to draw. His scars and stretch marks were good practice for line work and the curves of his flesh good for shading. As one of the students said, “you look like a real person. Not some perfect specimen, but a real human being with beauty and flaws.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jaskier had never before considered that his flaws could add to his beauty. He’d never considered that the way his body was aging was normal, that it could be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing, an interesting thing. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<span>The opportunity to be naked and just </span>
  <em>
    <span>exist</span>
  </em>
  <span> without worry about posing or looking alluring was a brand new experience and Jaskier rather thought he might like it. Maybe he’d do this again.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The part about needing validation made me think of these lyrics from <i>High Flying Adored</i> from <i>Evita</i>.<br/><i>You won't care if they love you, it's been done before<br/>You'll despair if they hate you<br/>You'll be drained of all energy</i></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>